


Nutella

by scullyphile



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Baking, Birthday, Cooking, F/M, Fluff, Lost - Freeform, MSR, Maggie - Freeform, Nutella, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 07:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5240594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyphile/pseuds/scullyphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder goes to the store, but something is missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nutella

There were a lot of ingredients on the list, but Mulder got them all. He checked twice before going to the checkout line. Everything was there. 

It was Maggie’s birthday, the first one they would be attending since they had dropped their lives and run off into the night. They couldn’t look back then; they’d had no choice. At least, it sure seemed that way. Hindsight was less convincing. 

Maggie certainly thought differently; she disagreed with many of the choices her daughter and Mulder had made in recent years. Mulder had abandoned her daughter in her time of need. Scully never should have given William away. To put it simply, Maggie was pissed–years worth of pissed. There was a lot riding on this birthday. Relationships needed mending. It would take time, but a good beginning was important, and they both knew it.

They had sent her vague postcards from hiding every year on her birthday and holidays, but that was nothing compared to an in-person visit and a homemade cake.

Mulder walked into the house holding the plastic bags up victoriously, as though they were the carcass of a caribou he had killed and butchered himself. He put them down on the counter before Scully, an offering to his god.

She took inventory of the contents of the bags, taking them out and putting them on the counter.  


“Mulder, where’s the Nutella?”

“It’s in there. I didn’t go to the store to buy ingredients for ‘cake with Nutella frosting’ and forget the Nutella.”

But where was it? Mulder took the crumpled receipt out of his coat pocket and studied it. 

“Right here, Scully. It’s on the receipt.” But it wasn’t on the counter.

“It’s not here,” she said, and he could tell the stress of it all had been getting to her. There was an open bottle of wine on the table, and he wondered how much of it she had consumed before he got home. 

“It’s got to be. I saw the kid put it in the bag,” he said, helplessly moving bags around even though he could clearly see it wasn’t there.

“Mom’s on this Nutella kick lately. I just wanted to make her something special on her birthday. Now there’s no Nutella,” she said, slumping down into a chair. She downed the last of the wine in her glass and started to pour more.

“We’re investigators, Scully, we can find this jar of Nutella. We may be a little rusty, but we haven’t lost our touch.”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t move. He held out his hand to pull her up from the chair. She hesitated, but took it. He yanked her to her feet and spun her around before pulling her into his arms. 

“I mean it,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “We’re going to get that Nutella, even if we have to drive back to that grocery store and interrogate the bag boy until he talks. If he took it, so help me, he will confess. No one messes up my mother-in-law’s birthday.”

“Mulder, we’re not–” she started, but he put his finger over her lips. 

“Shh. To the car!” he shouted, throwing one finger into the air dramatically. “You can see here, as we retrace my steps, that I didn’t drop the jar like a bumbling idiot, despite your ‘theory.’ And don’t tell me you didn’t at least think that for a moment.“

She was quiet. He held open the door for her to walk outside.

“Here you can see footprints, mine, leading from the car to the house. No Nutella. Want to dust the inside of the car for prints? There’s a kit around here somewhere, I think. It’ll be like old times.”

She shook her head at his suggestion, but he could tell she was trying not to smile. He opened the doors of the car, one at a time. 

“This is where the bags sat, on the back seat. Let me just…” he trailed off as he stuck his arm under the front seat. His face contorted as he stretched his arm and felt around. “Ah-HA!” he shouted, pulling the jar out from under the seat.

“I’ll forgive you this one time for not trusting me, Scully,” he said, “for not believing in the existence of the Nutella, but in the future, please have a little faith.”


End file.
